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Problem and methods: Physical appearance is one of the key components of selfperception from early childhood. An individual’s perceived physical attractiveness is largely conditioned by geographical, cultural and historical factors. Every culture develops its own criteria of attractiveness and any deviations to those are often a cause of ostracism, for example through exclusion or rejection. Still, there are certain universal principles of attractiveness (e.g. a higher waist-hip ratio, facial symmetry, sexually dimorphic features), which exist across cultures and time periods with little variation. To measure a person’s level of satisfaction with his/her physical appearance, psychologists regularly employ figure rating scales. The primary goal of our work was to develop and verify an updated visual body rating scale called the Basic Olomouc Body Rating (BOBR), making sure that it is widely usable, valid and reliable. The scale was created using the method of document analysis of academic papers according body-rating scales and a method of interview with potential probands. In the pilot data gathering phase, a group of respondents was presented with the 3 scales commonly used in the European context, i.e. FDS (Stunkard, Sorensen & Schulsinger, 1983), CDRS (Thompson & Gray, 1995) and BIAS-BD (Gardner, Jappe & Gardner, 2009). The purpose of this was to get feedback on these scales and find out if people are able to use these scales to rate themselves. New schematic figure rating scale for both men and women which would do away with the limitations of the scales used so far was developed. Results: The result is creation of a body-rating scale widely usable in further research and practical consulting. The paper briefly summarizes results of an additional study – the goal definition phase was followed by online research on the subject of body image and the self-perceived sexual attractiveness. Altogether, 5,616 respondents from the Czech Republic responded to questions such as ‘How do I look?’, ‘How do I want to look?’ and ‘Which figures of the same and opposite sex do I find the most sexually attractive?’ The participants indicated their responses on the BOBR 10-point figure rating scale. The results showed a significant divergence between the responses to the questions ‘I want to look’ and ‘I look’ among men, but also among women (p = 0.00; p = 0.00). Our research findings do not differ from the findings of other authors. Body dissatisfaction is a relatively common phenomenon, especially in women and in relation to weight. While women would like to be thinner, body dissatisfaction in men goes both ways, i.e. men, more frequently than women, would like to have a fuller figure. Compared with women, men are more frequently dissatisfied with their height. Conclusion: The main conclusion of the study is creation of the BOBR figure – rating scale, which was validated and is ready to be used in further researches. Further on, the scale has been verified in terms of validity and reliability; and a significant divergence was found between the responses to the questions ‘I want to look’ and ‘I look’ among both men and women. At this stage, the scale has been validated as an instrument and demonstrated to be useful for a variety of tasks: The fact that the scale has been received well also increases its potential and usability, for example in consulting psychology or as an ice-breaker during therapy sessions for individuals suffering from eating disorders.

Focusing on a subject largely neglected in mainstream Czech social stratification research so far, this study seeks to examine to what extent tertiary educational attainment and educational mobility are affected by personal factors, such as personality traits, physical attractiveness, and self-esteem. It is based on data drawn from a large-scale representative survey carried out in the Czech Republic (Neglected Human Capital Dimensions 2015) as the second follow-up to the OECD PIAAC project. The results show that physical attractiveness plays a significant role in tertiary educational attainment, especially in the humanities and social-science disciplines. As for personality traits, Openness to Experience and Extraversion are more beneficial for humanities degrees, whereas Neuroticism significantly decreases a person's chances of obtaining a degree in science. Conscientiousness and Self-esteem have a positive impact on upward educational mobility. The study also finds that there are some gender differences in the strength of the effect of personality factors, and that this is especially true for the trait of Agreeableness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem and methods: Physical appearance is one of the key components of selfperception from early childhood. An individual's perceived physical attractiveness is largely conditioned by geographical, cultural and historical factors. Every culture develops its own criteria of attractiveness and any deviations to those are often a cause of ostracism, for example through exclusion or rejection. Still, there are certain universal principles of attractiveness (e.g. a higher waist-hip ratio, facial symmetry, sexually dimorphic features), which exist across cultures and time periods with little variation. To measure a person's level of satisfaction with his/her physical appearance, psychologists regularly employ figure rating scales. The primary goal of our work was to develop and verify an updated visual body rating scale called the Basic Olomouc Body Rating (BOBR), making sure that it is widely usable, valid and reliable. The scale was created using the method of document analysis of academic papers according body-rating scales and a method of interview with potential probands. In the pilot data gathering phase, a group of respondents was presented with the 3 scales commonly used in the European context, i.e. FDS (Stunkard, Sorensen & Schulsinger, 1983), CDRS (Thompson & Gray, 1995) and BIAS-BD (Gardner, Jappe & Gardner, 2009). The purpose of this was to get feedback on these scales and find out if people are able to use these scales to rate themselves. New schematic figure rating scale for both men and women which would do away with the limitations of the scales used so far was developed. Results: The result is creation of a body-rating scale widely usable in further research and practical consulting. The paper briefly summarizes results of an additional study - the goal definition phase was followed by online research on the subject of body image and the self-perceived sexual attractiveness. Altogether, 5,616 respondents from the Czech Republic responded to questions such as 'How do I look?', 'How do I want to look?' and 'Which figures of the same and opposite sex do I find the most sexually attractive?' The participants indicated their responses on the BOBR 10-point figure rating scale. The results showed a significant divergence between the responses to the questions 'I want to look' and 'I look' among men, but also among women (p = 0.00; p = 0.00). Our research findings do not differ from the findings of other authors. Body dissatisfaction is a relatively common phenomenon, especially in women and in relation to weight. While women would like to be thinner, body dissatisfaction in men goes both ways, i.e. men, more frequently than women, would like to have a fuller figure. Compared with women, men are more frequently dissatisfied with their height. Conclusion: The main conclusion of the study is creation of the BOBR figure - rating scale, which was validated and is ready to be used in further researches. Further on, the scale has been verified in terms of validity and reliability; and a significant divergence was found between the responses to the questions 'I want to look' and 'I look' among both men and women. At this stage, the scale has been validated as an instrument and demonstrated to be useful for a variety of tasks: The fact that the scale has been received well also increases its potential and usability, for example in consulting psychology or as an ice-breaker during therapy sessions for individuals suffering from eating disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attractiveness is a widely discusses topic today, this paper focuses on attractiveness as a phenomenon of social psychology and especially on its influence on social contacts. An orientation typology of humans according to their appearance (twelve categories) was mapped out and the appropriate representatives of each category were found. The goal of the research was to state the order of these categories according to perceived attractiveness and ascribed credibility and to trace the relation between these two components. There were twenty-four portrait photographs (twelve men and twelve women). However, the main target of this study was to prepare the background for the planned research on the influence of the physical attractiveness of a person on the way he or she is viewed and evaluated by others, to be more specific, by traffic policemen as they often make decisions based on their "first impression". Respondents were men, 20-35 years old, soon-to-be policemen and they did not personally know the people on the portraits. The results show correlation between the perceived attractiveness and ascribed credibility (r = 0,538 for men and r = 0,668 for women). On the basis of this pre-study, the portraits of persons evaluated as the most attractive and the least attractive were chosen for the following research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]